patrick.net

Unsurprisingly, the weekend’s loudest story splashed onto the front pages again this morning, about the peaceful Minneapolis nurse who was minding his own business and innocently playing with his bear horn and practicing his wrestling techniques when he was suddenly and unexpectedly murdered by ICE agents for no reason. The New York Times ran this morning’s top-of-page story under the headline, “How the Trump Administration Rushed to Judgment in Minneapolis Shooting.”




To be clear, the Times’s story was not referring to the Athens, Georgia nursing student, Laken Riley, who was abducted by an illegal immigrant while she was jogging and then raped, murdered, and stuffed in the bushes. The Times isn’t concerned about that nurse, nor did it run days of multi-story coverage about her. Don’t be silly.

No, it was a completely different nurse who was, in an ironic twist on Laken’s story, shot while defending illegal alien criminals from federal agents. Even more ironically, Mr. Pretti used a very different standard for avoiding risks during covid:




Had he followed his own ‘safety-first’ covid advice, he might still be here today to help agonize over all the different video angles of the incident that the media has been obsessing over.

This is already a widely discussed story, so I won’t dwell on the details. Plus, I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there when Pretti was shot while federal agents were dealing with his “peaceful arrest-resisting.” It seems self-evident that going to violent, chaotic protests, shouting obscenities, blowing bear horns in agents’ faces, interfering when they tried to subdue another protester, carrying a semi-auto with extra magazines, and wrestling with officers in a high-adrenaline encounter carries known risks of an unfortunate misunderstanding and tragic outcome.

Nurse Pretti stayed home to avoid the risk of a mild viral infection, but he practically sprinted to a tumultuous street protest, armed, and grappled with law enforcement. Make it make sense.

The blame-game is off and running. The Times and Democrats claim the shooting was unjustified. But, if millions of people carefully flyspecking the incident frame-by-frame, from multiple angles and videos, can’t even agree whether Pretti touched his gun or tried to reach his holster, how on Earth are officers involved in the scrum expected to tell in the heat of the moment and in a split second?

The fact that this debate has raged for so long without any clarity is evidence of ambiguity, which must accrue in the officers’ favor. We can’t ask citizens to enforce laws and then hold them to impossible standards. If anyone is at fault, it is the Minnesota authorities, whose inept decisions created the high-risk conditions leading straight to the shooting.

Think about it. There have been no police shootings in jurisdictions like Florida that cooperate with federal authorities, instead of undermining them. ...

Put simply, the chart proves that blue states are resisting immigration enforcement. They refuse simple cooperation, such as handing over aliens from their jails, prisons, and hospitals. So ICE must go into those communities to find the aliens. Meanwhile, activists track ICE and organize insta-riots, which leads to more demonstrations and more chances for ugly encounters like the Pretti shooting.

I’m sorry Mr. Pretti lost his life due to his poor choices. But considering the risks these states and protesters are obviously creating for themselves and others, it’s a miracle there have only been two deaths so far.

It’s also worth noting that the streets of Minneapolis (-17 degrees) were calm until just after Operation Metro Surge began in response to the Quality Learing fraud. Are the protests a cover up? Yesterday, President Trump posted this:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump• 17h
Minnesota is a Criminal COVER UP of the massive Financial Fraud that has gone on!

He immediately followed that post with an even longer one, “formally” demanding that blue states begin cooperating with immigration enforcement:




Also yesterday —and the timing cannot be ignored— CBS reported, “Bondi seeks Minnesota voter rolls, welfare data to “help bring back law and order” in wake of shootings.” Yesterday (Sunday!), in the wake of the ugly Pretti shooting, Attorney General Pam Bondi fired off a 3-page letter to Minnesota’s Coach-in-Chief, Tim Walz, setting terms for a mutual climb down. CBS didn’t bother linking the letter. (But here it is!)

She wants three things. Bondi’s letter first demanded that the state “share all of Minnesota’s records on Medicaid and Food and Nutrition Service programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program data … to efficiently investigate fraud and ensure that Minnesota’s welfare funds are being used to help those in need, not enrich fraudsters.”

For some reason, CBS’s story didn’t mention Bondi’s first demand, relating to the fraud, till later down the story. But it seems significant that fraud was her first issue.

Second, “repeal the sanctuary policies that have led to so much crime and violence in your state” and cooperate with ICE, including allowing access to local jails and honoring federal detention requests. Third, “allow the DOJ to access voter rolls to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.”

Seems simple enough. Bondi offered some more advice. “Do not obstruct federal immigration enforcement,” Bondi advised. “Do not allow rioters to take over the streets and houses of worship; do not hinder federal officials from investigating financial fraud and violations of election laws.” She optimistically concluded, “I am confident that these simple steps will help bring back law and order to Minnesota and improve the lives of Americans.”

Haha! Too optimistic! Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon shot back with a statement last night saying, “The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no.” Alrighty then.

So where are we? It seems like the unstoppable force is colliding with the immovable object— Tim Walz’s granite noggin. It’s hard to predict where this ends up, but it isn’t Trump’s first rodeo with Minneapolis. Somehow, I doubt it’s a coincidence that this frozen showdown is happening there. Somewhere, George Floyd’s ghost is shaking his head.

Related: here we go again! Yesterday, the Associated Press reported, “Democrats vow to oppose homeland security funds after Minnesota shooting as shutdown risk grows.” Get ready for another government shutdown! Amidst a DC snowstorm that closed Congress today, the Friday deadline to complete a spending package is racing toward us like a herd of smelly anti-ICE protesters. Since Mr. Pretti got himself shot, furious Senate Democrats are now demanding the defunding of ICE.

It’s not clear what form a new government shutdown would take, or to what extent it will occur. Six short-term spending bills (half of them) have already been passed. Some media platforms are talking about a ‘partial shutdown,’ whatever that is, or whether anyone could even detect it without scientific instruments.

The shutdown threat seems especially silly and irrational since Democrats can’t stop immigration enforcement anyway. ICE and CBP are classified as “essential operations,” and are currently funded several years in advance. All Democrats can do is value-signal and give non-essential DHS staff paid vacations. Again.

Republicans clearly saw this fight coming, or something like it, since this time they wisely split the spending package into an even dozen bills. Since they obviously have a plan, I wonder what the rest of it looks like? Prepare popcorn.

So, what's the leverage?

I see. He was 'expecting a firefight,' therefore the officers had the legal right to hold him, take his weapon, and murder him.
good to know the police can kill you for 'future knowledge.'
What was that Tom Cruise movie again?
Oh, yeah - minority report.

cool tactic, btw - just label someone a 'domestic terrorist,' then you can murder them!
I support our brownshirts!

The main problem is that the people interfering in ICE operations are not being immediately arrested and sent to prison for the three years allowed by law.

But also, there are some more effective ways to get criminal aliens to self-deport, such as confiscating their bank accounts. After all, they broke into the US for the money.

Because it's unimportant and a distraction

sorry, but “well did he draw first?” is kind of out the window and people do often carry second weapons.

sure, carrying a gun is legal, but that does not make doing it while getting aggressive with cops either smart or safe. play dangerous games, win dangerous prizes.

i once got pulled over for speeding while having a gun clipped to the driver side door of my car. (legally, i have multiple CCP’s) i kept my hands on the wheel, informed the officer of the weapon, said “obviously, i intend this as no threat to you,” and asked how he’d like to proceed so that we did not have any misunderstandings. he thanked me for doing so, we had a nice chat about which handguns we each prefer, and i got let go with a warning to stop driving like an andretti.

if you want to be safe, this is really not that hard.

but if you act threatening, you’re putting yourself in a different and dangerous situation.

The control of government by a cabal of sex offenders is perhaps the most important issue of them all.

LOL! Walz plea bargaining? 'Similar wavelength', like, it's not whether it's going to be bad for you, it's now only HOW bad.

I get that, but for me, it's all BS.

In my mind, a few Gaetz and Epsteins paying for handies from HS Seniors < Millions of Illegals.

Case in point:

Do something about it.

It's definitely not just a few clients at the top. It's a lot of powerful people who are being protected, which discredits Trump and our whole government

They should release all the documents instead of literally violating the new law about that every single day.

This incident should be properly investigated (esp. since it looks like he has been disarmed prior to his killing) and there could be a case made to always do this if there is even the slightest doubt, so they could have at least done a formal investigation for the killed womyn as well. To compare this with brownshirts or scenarios where legally armed citizens gets randomly or purposely killed by Feds is ridiculous hyperbole, dude violently impeded a LEO operation trying to apprehend a fugitive. Completely and utterly different from Ashly babbit who wasnt impeding anything, unarmed and got shot for nothing.

Patrick says

Because it's unimportant and a distraction (which is why Massie and Dems only discovered it recently) relative to deport, deport, deport.

258d13dd says

I see. He was 'expecting a firefight,' therefore the officers had the legal right to hold him, take his weapon, and murder him.
good to know the police can kill you for 'future knowledge.'
What was that Tom Cruise movie again?
Oh, yeah - minority report.

cool tactic, btw - just label someone a 'domestic terrorist,' then you can murder them!
I support our brownshirts!

I recommend not getting in the way of ICE. Do you really think they’re doing something that you have a right to interfere with? FAFO is real.

Ceffer says

Talk about living in a simulation. Or HeySu is funnier than we thought.

I'm sick and tired of all this braying about being "armed" or "unarmed". It used to be the SOP of leftard purple hair cunts to scream "unarmed therefore untouchable" and "armed therefore deserves execution". Fucking hell, we're (or rather you are) becoming them.

It's the fucking right to be fucking armed in America. Specifically enumerated in the fucking Constitution right after the fucking right to protest.

If you are as pro-2A as you proclaimed to be for all these years you should be fucking furious at the sight of a guy being ventilated by the government for a simple fact he had a pistol in his waistband.

"But-but-but ... he was impeding an ICE operation!" I'm having fucking flashbacks of leftards braying "but-but-but... she was impeding the work of the Congress!" for fucking 4 years. This is the same bullshit.

Color your hair purple and put a well-deserved ring in your nose so daddy can govern you harder, LOL.

It's the media trying to make a martyr